Study looking at the impact of a brief lunchtime visit to an art gallery on City workers’ levels of the stress hormone cortisol as well as self-report levels of stress and arousal.

Found average levels of cortisol and self-report stress were significantly reduced by the visit, levels of arousal were unchanged. On arrival at the gallery levels of cortisol were elevated relative to expected values. Following the gallery visit the cortisol concentrations had normalised to those expected for the time of day. The observed drop in cortisol was rapid and substantial; under normal circumstances it would take about 5 hours of normal diurnal decline for cortisol levels to fall to this extent. Conclusion that the gallery visit caused rapid normalisation (recovery) from the consequences of high stress. Read more at Westminster Research